Month: December 2020

December 24

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Boston Evening-Post (December 24, 1770).

“The Royal Exchange Tavern … will be opened this Day as a COFFEE-HOUSE.”

When Abigail Stoneman opened a new coffeehouse in Boston in December 1770, she attempted to increase the visibility of her venture by advertising in multiple newspapers rather than trusting that word-of-mouth recommendations and the readership of a single publication would be sufficient to attract customers.  Having “repaired and fitted for the Reception of Company” the Royal Exchange Tavern on King Street, Stoneman announced that it now operated as a coffeehouse, though she also provided furnished lodgings “for constant or occasional Boarders.”

To spread the news widely, she placed notices in the Boston Evening-Post, the Boston-Gazette, and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, three of the five newspapers published in Boston at the time.  She did not insert her advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter or the Massachusetts Spy.  The latter had only recently launched and carried few advertisements, perhaps indicative of a smaller readership and, accordingly, fewer prospective customers.  Her budget for advertising may have prompted Stoneman to limit her efforts to three newspapers instead of placing notices in all four with wider distributions.

The copy and format of Stoneman’s advertisements further confirm the division of labor evident in other paid notices that ran in multiple newspapers.  The advertiser assumed responsibility for composing the copy, but the compositor exercised discretion when it came to format.  Stoneman’s advertisements featured identical copy (with the exception of a dateline that did not appear in the Boston Evening-Post, though that very well could have been a decision made by the compositor).  The format from newspaper to newspaper, however, varied.  The iteration in the Boston Evening-Post had the most recognizable headline and made use of centering for “COFFEE-HOUSE” in a larger font.  The other two iterations treated the copy as a single paragraph that lacked centering or white space to draw attention to significant aspects.

Regardless of the graphic design decisions made by compositors for the various newspapers, Stoneman informed the public that she offered hospitality at a new coffeehouse in the Royal Exchange Tavern.  Readers of multiple newspapers encountered her invitation to enjoy the new atmosphere at the Royal Exchange Tavern, repaired and remodeled as a coffeehouse.  Whether or not readers had previously visited, she welcomed them all to her new enterprise.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 24, 1770

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR:  Charles Zambito

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonists encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonists who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Dec 24 1770 - Boston Evening-Post Slavery 1
Boston Evening-Post (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury Slavery 1
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury Slavery 2
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy Slavery 1
New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - Pennsylvania Chronicle Slavery 1
Pennsylvania Chronicle (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 1
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 2
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 3
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 4
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 5
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 6
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 7
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 8
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 9
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 10
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 11
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 12
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 13
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

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Dec 24 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 14
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 24, 1770).

 

December 23

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Pennsylvania Journal (December 20, 1770).

“D.K’s performance is scandalous and preposterous.”

Lewis Fay’s advertisement in the Pennsylvania Journal caused some controversy.  For several weeks in November 1770, the “Periwig Maker and Hair Dresser” originally from Paris, announced that he now offered his services to the ladies and gentlemen of Philadelphia.  He proudly proclaimed that he could style women’s hair “in fifty different manners” and men’s hair “in thirty fashionable and different manners.”  As Kate Haulman and others have shown, many colonists considered elaborate hairstyles an unnecessary luxury that also signaled a lack of character and predisposition to vices.

D.K. was one such critic.  Upon encountering Fay’s advertisement in the November 8 edition of the Pennsylvania Journal, D.K. was so incensed as to send a letter to the editor of the Pennsylvania Chronicle about it.  That letter ran on December 3.  Even though Fay clearly identified both ladies and gentlemen as prospective clients in his advertisement, D.K. thought “on the first perusal” that it was “probably a satire on the Ladies, who in general are too fond of new fashions.”  Critiques of consumption and fashion often devolved to gendered attacks on women, even when they engaged in the same practices as men.  D.K. went on to describe Fay as “a worthless daring animal” and an instrument of the devil, “the arch-enemy of mankind,” because he sought “to propogate his infernal arts” in Philadelphia.  D.K. then quoted extensively from Fay’s original advertisement, thus supplementing a different advertisement that Fay happened to insert on the previous page of that issue of the Pennsylvania Chronicle.  After quoting Fay’s claims about how many hairstyles he had mastered, D.K. exclaimed, “I think Cerberus himself could not belch forth more horrid and hateful language.”  As far as D.K. was concerned Fay should have labored in the workhouse rather than “dressing hair, in the shameful ridiculous manner he proposes.”  Still, D.K. imagined that Fay might attract a clientele of “poor thoughtless vain Girls, or some giddy wanton Matrons, or brainless fluttering Fops.”  D.K. did not want to see them become victims of “this French Metamorphoser.”  The anonymous critic concluded by stating that he hoped to “prevent so abominable a practice from getting encouragement in any of our provinces” by raising the alarm with his letter.

That editorial garnered a response among the advertisements in the December 20, 1770, edition of the Pennsylvania Journal.  Another anonymous correspondent, who signed as “ADMIRER of ARTS,” defended Fay.  Admirer described D.K.’s “censure upon the Ladies in general, and Mr. Fay in particular” as “scandalous and preposterous.”  Admirer did not wish to further dignify most of the editorial with a response, but did clarify that Fay “has resided at Boston with the greatest applause, for his superior Knowledge of dressing and preserving the hair, exactness and sobriety.”  Fay’s original advertisement ignited a passionate response that was part of a larger discourse about consumption, fashion, luxury, and vice in the era of the American Revolution.  The debate in the public prints took place in various formats, sometimes among letters to the editor and other times in advertisements.  Paid notices did not operate independently of other contents of newspapers.  Instead, colonists read … and responded … back and forth as they imposed political and cultural meaning on consumption.

December 22

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Providence Gazette (December 22, 1770).

“On Wednesday next will be Published … Mr. West’s Sheet ALMANACK, For the Year 1771.”

Advertisements for almanacs were ubiquitous in American newspapers in late December during the era of the American Revolution.  They began appearing in late summer or early fall, usually just brief announcements that printers planned to publish and start selling them within the coming weeks.  The number and frequency of advertisements for almanacs increased throughout the fall and continued as winter officially arrived just before the end of the year.  Printers continued to advertise almanacs in January, hoping to relieve themselves of surplus copies that cut into their revenues.  Advertisements tapered off in February and beyond, though some notices occasionally appeared well into the new year.

Benjamin West, the author of the “NEW-ENGLAND ALMANACK, OR Lady’s and Gentleman’s DIARY, For the Year of our Lord 1771,” and John Carter, the printer of both that almanac and the Providence Gazette, were among the promoters of almanacs in the public prints in 1770.  They offered “Great Allowance … to those who take a Quantity.”  In other words, shopkeepers, booksellers, peddlers, and others received discounts for buying by volume, thus allowing them to charge competitive retail prices.

By the first day of winter, West and Carter had already been advertising the New-England Almanack for more than a month.  The advertisement that ran in the December 22 edition of the Providence Gazette likely looked familiar to readers, but the conclusion announced a new product that would soon be available for customers.  Within the next week, Carter planned to publish “Mr. West’s Sheet ALMANACK, For the Year 1771.”  This condensed version of the pamphlet organized the contents on a single broadsheet to hang on a wall in a home or office for easy reference.  West and Carter realized that consumers might have use for an almanac in a different format instead of or, even better, in addition to the standard pamphlet version.  Their decision to publish a sheet almanac presented customers with choices.  Waiting to publish the sheet almanack until just a week before the new year may have been a savvy decision when it came to customers who preferred that format but who already purchased the pamphlet version.  For printers of all sorts, including those who published newspapers, almanacs were an important source of revenue.  For Carter, that made introducing a sheet almanac just a week before the new year worth the risk.

December 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-Hampshire Gazette (December 21, 1770).

“He has removed from his SHOP … to the Shop lately improved by Mr. James M’Donough.”

George Craigie’s advertisement in the December 21, 1770, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette got cut short.  Craigie informed the public that he carried “a good Assortment Of English GOODS, Suitable for the Season,” but his advertisement ended with a note that the “Particulars of which will be inserted in our next.”  In other words, someone decided to truncate a longer version of the shopkeeper’s advertisement that would run in the next issue of the New-Hampshire Gazette.  It could have been Craigie himself if he had not had time to prepare a list of his merchandise.  More likely, either the compositor or the editor made the decision due to lack of space for the lengthy advertisement.  When it ran the following week, Craigie’s notice occupied more than half a column, listing everything from textiles to housewares to groceries to writing paper.

Although a catalog of his inventory was an important means of inciting interest among prospective customers, Craigie likely did not consider it as important as the portion of his advertisement that did appear in print on December 21.  The shopkeeper took the opportunity to inform the public “that he has removed from his SHOP near the Market House, on Spring Hill, Portsmouth, to the Shop lately improved by Mr. James M’Donough, in the Pav’d Street, leading from the State House to the Market.”  Craigie did not want to lose any customers because they were unaware of his new location.  The “Particulars” held until the next issue did not matter if shoppers had difficulty finding him following his move from a familiar location to one previously associated with someone else.  In addition, the promise of a more complete accounting of Craigie’s goods in the next issue may have prompted some anticipation and curiosity among readers, another benefit of a shorter advertisement that made his enterprise more visible compared to no advertisement at all in that issue.  By the time the more elaborate advertisement appeared, Craigie already encouraged interest in both his new location and his inventory.

December 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Gazette (December 20 1770).

“He doubts not but every merchant and shop-keeper in this city, and towns adjacent that regard the good of this oppressed country, will encourage such an undertaking.”

Abraham Shelley, a “THREAD-MAKER, in Lombard-street” in Philadelphia, sought to convince colonial consumers that purchasing his wares amounted to a civic duty.  In an advertisement in the December 20, 1770, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, he informed prospective customers that he continued “to make and sell … all sorts of fine coloured thread” that he asserted was “much better, and cheaper, than what is imported from Europe.”  Quality and price were important, but Shelley gave consumers additional reasons to purchase his thread.  He offered alternatives to imported goods to colonists who had widely pledged to encourage “domestic manufactures” as a means of correcting a trade imbalance with Britain as well as practicing politics through commerce in the wake of duties that Parliament imposed on certain imported goods.  Even after colonists ended their nonimportation pacts following the repeal of those Townshend duties, some advertisers continued to proclaim the virtues of domestic manufactures.  More than ever, they depended on consumers making conscientious decisions in the marketplace.

When customers selected Shelley’s thread over imported alternatives, they did not have to sacrifice quality or price.  They also demonstrated support for American efforts to achieve greater self-sufficiency to protect against subsequent attempts by Parliament to harass the colonies.  He asked consumers to take into account “the good of this oppressed country.”  In addition, he underscored that his enterprise “supplies a great number of poor women with market money, who, otherwise, with their children, would become a public charge.”  Civic responsibility inherent in purchasing thread from Shelley extended beyond politics to poor relief.  That meant that consumers could serve their communities in many ways simultaneously when they decided to buy from Shelley, who proclaimed that he “doubts not but every merchant and shop-keeper in this city, and towns adjacent” should acquire thread from him to sell to others.  The civic responsibility he described belonged not only to consumers but also to those who sold goods to them.  Merchants and shopkeepers also made important decisions in choosing which items to stock in their stores and shops.  Quality and price matter, but Shelley believed that civic responsibility further enhanced his appeals to customers.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 20, 1770

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR:  Charles Zambito

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonists encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonists who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Dec 20 1770 - Maryland Gazette Slavery 1
Maryland Gazette (December 20, 1770).

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Dec 20 1770 - Maryland Gazette Slavery 2
Maryland Gazette (December 20, 1770).

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Dec 20 1770 - Maryland Gazette Slavery 3
Maryland Gazette (December 20, 1770).

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Dec 20 1770 - Maryland Gazette Slavery 4
Maryland Gazette (December 20, 1770).

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Dec 20 1770 - Pennsylvania Gazette Slavery 1
Pennsylvania Gazette (December 20, 1770).

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Dec 20 1770 - Pennsylvania Journal Slavery 1
Pennsylvania Journal (December 20, 1770).

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Dec 20 1770 - Pennsylvania Journal Slavery 2
Pennsylvania Journal (December 20, 1770).

Welcome, Guest Curator Charles Zambito

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , ,

Charles Zambito is junior majoring in History and minoring in Political Science at Assumption University in Worcerster, Massachsuetts .He is from Norwood, Massachusetts, where he was born and raised. His historical interests include the nineteenth century and the Middle Ages, particularly in Western Europe, but he is always interested to expand his scope by studying other areas as well. He is also interested in studying the politics of Great Britain as well as America. As for extracurricular activities, Charles takes part in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Model Senate project. He also takes part in the Advocates for Life club as well as taking part in the Republican Club as Chief of Staff. Charles conducted the research for his contributions as guest curator for the Slavery Adverts 250 Project when he was enrolled in HIS 400 – Research Methods: Vast Early America in Spring 2020.

Welcome, guest curator Charles Zambito!

December 19

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

“ALL Persons indebted to CARNE & WILSON, are requested to discharge their respective Debts.”

Apothecaries Carne and Wilson advertised widely when they dissolved their partnership in the fall of 1770, calling on clients to “discharge their respective Debts” or else face the consequences.  They threatened that those who disregarded their notices would “have to settle with a Gentleman of the Law.”  They also expressed some exasperation, stating that they had inserted advertisement “in the several Gazettes” published in Charleston so none of their customers “may plead ignorance.”  Such notices were common in South Carolina and throughout the colonies.

Neither Carne nor Wilson retired, moved to another town, or ceased working as apothecaries when their partnership came to an end.  Instead, they each pursued other opportunities.  Wilson ran his own shop, while Carne embarked on a new partnership.  Both ran advertisements for their new endeavors, notices that overlapped with their advertisements instructing former customers to settle accounts.  In the December 19, 1770, edition of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette, for instance, a single column on the front page included advertisements representing all three enterprises.  Wilson’s advertisement for a “LARGE and compleat ASSORTMENT of DRUGS, CHEMICAL, GALENICAL, and FAMILY MEDICINES” appeared at the top of the column, followed immediately by Carne and Poinsett’s advertisement for a “Large Parcel of DRUGS and MEDICINES.”  Even though they were now competitors rather than partners, the proximity of their advertisements kept their names associated with each other.  Several other advertisements appeared in that column, with Carne and Wilson’s notice for customers to discharge their debts at the bottom.
The public prints featured reverberations of Carne and Wilson’s former partnership even as they launched and promoted new ventures.  The success of those new ventures may have depended in part on closing the books on the partnership, hence their stern warning that recalcitrant customers might have to deal with an attorney “as no longer indulgence can possibly be given, there being an absolute necessity for having every thing relative to that concern closed.”  Colonial entrepreneurs placed advertisements throughout the various stages of operating their businesses, announcing that they would soon open, promoting goods and services available at their shops, and informing the public when they closed.  The three advertisements that Carne and Wilson placed simultaneously in the South-Carolina and American General Gazetteencapsulated this cycle, telling a more complete story about their commercial activities.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 19, 1770

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR:  Andrew Wynne

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonists encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonists who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 1
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 2
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 3
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 4
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 5
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 6
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 7
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 8
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 9
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 10
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 11
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).

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Dec 19 1770 - South-Carolina and American General Gazette Slavery 12
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 19, 1770).